Imaam al-Shaafi’i Rahimahullaah said: ‘There is nobody except that he has someone who loves him and someone who hates him. So if that’s the case, let a person be with the people who are obedient to Allaah `Azza Wa Jall.’

How Similar is Yesterday to Today

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Subject: How Similar is Yesterday to Today Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:17 pm

Assalaamu 'Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah.

The way Muslims were treated by the Christians in al-Andalus during the reconquista & Spanish Inquisition bear striking similarities to the way Muslims are tortured & imprisoned today by the crUSAders. The following was taken from the book “An Incomplete History: The Muslims of Spain Post- ه897 /م1492 In A Global Context And Its Relevance to Muslims Today” by the brotherIbn Abi Hisham al-Muhajir (May Allah reward him abundantly). I highly encourage everyone to read this book insha’Allah. As you will continue to read you will find out that nothing to kuffaar do today is new, it has been carried out before them by their Christian forefathers of al-Andalus on the Muslims.

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In order to interrogate the accused, the Inquisition madeuse of torture, but not in a systematic way. It was applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism, Islam and Protestantism, beginning in the 16th century. Torture was always a means to obtain the confession of the accused,not a punishment itself. It was applied without distinction of sex or age, including children and the aged. Before the torture was applied, the torturer began by

“…stripping the prisoner [of his clothes and tying him to the trestle, there was a pause in which he was solemnly adjured to tell the truth for the love of God, as the inquisitors did not desire to see him suffer. The exposure of stripping was not a mere wanton aggravation but wasnecessary, for the cords around the thighs and arms, the belt at the waist with cords passing from it over the shoulders from front to back, required access toevery portion of the body and, at the end of the torture, there was little of the surface that had not had its due share of agony, (Lea, 1906, vol. 3,17).”

This was inflicted on both men and women prior to torture tohumiliate the victim and perhaps for the pleasure of their tormentors. *

The torture began and proceeded

“…slowly with due intervals between each turn of the garrotes or hoist in the garrucha, or otherwise the effect was lost, and the patient was apt to overcome the torture, (ibid, 18).”

Moreover there were restriction on the amount of times thattorture could be applied, (this is theoretically identical to the case of Guantamo, Bagram and elsewhere). However, there were ways of circumventing this rule as torture could be continued by simply telling the defendant,

“…the inquisitors were not satisfied, but were obliged to suspend it for the present, and that it would be resumed at another time, if he did not tell the whole truth. Thus itcould be repeated from time to time as often as the consulta de fe might deem expedient, (ibid).”

The methods of torture most used by the Inquisition were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted ofsuspending the criminal from the ceiling by a pulley with weights tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated. In about 1620, a writer of aninquisitional manual wrote:

“…the elevating movement should be slow, for if it is rapid the pain is not lasting; for a time the patient should be kept at tiptoe, so that his feet scarce touch the floor;when hoisted he should be held there while the psalm Miserere is thrice repeated slowly in silence, and he is to be repeatedly admonished to tell the truth. If this fail he is to be lowered, one of the weights is to be attachedto his feet and he is to be hoisted for the space of two Misereres, the process being repeated with increasing weights as often and as long as may be judgedexpedient (ibid, 19).”

People that have read about the torture practice of Arab jails, especially Egypt, would know very well that this is a technique still in practice today by the treacherous regimes.

The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted ofintroducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they hadimpression of drowning. Initially the defendant would be placed on:

“…an escalera or potro…It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. Sharp cords, called cordeles, which cut into the flesh, attached the arms and legs to the side of the trestle and others, known as garrotes, from sticks thrust in them and twisted around like a tourniquet till the cords cut more or less deeply into the flesh, were twined around the upperand lower arms, the thighs and the calves; a bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient strangled and gasped andsuffocated and, at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight (ibid, 19).”

This method is especially poingnant today, as the US militaryhas used and continues to use this method of torture, more commonly known as ‘waterboarding,’ upon Muslims they suspect of being ‘terrorists’ in numerous ‘Black Sites’ around the world.

When it was over and the accused confessed under duress, the inquisitors concluded their reports by saying that “confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum,” or that “the confession was true and free.” In other words the accused confessed of his own will, much like victims of American torture in terror in Guantanamo, Bagram, Cairo, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan and a host of other torture centers confess to whatever it is their tormentors tell them to confess to. After his confession, the accused was to besentenced.

A strategy that was highly effective then, (and veryrelevant now), was for the Inquisitorial authorities to appoint Muslim notables and elites as ‘familiars’ or informants to inform on their respective populations. This was the case when in Valencia in 1561, the Inquisition appointed the Ibn Aamir family as one of their ‘familiars’ in Valencia, (Kamen,1999,222). In fact it was not just the Ibn Aamir family but the families of

“…Don Cosme, Don Juan and Don Hernando Abenamir [Ibn Aamir] of Benaguacil [whom] ranked among the first of the old Moors [Former Muslims/Mudajjan] of Valencia; the brothers were rich and influential; they held licences to bear arms, and Inquisitor Miranda had appointed them familiars--a position which they resigned at the instance of the Duke of Segorbe, on whose lands they dwelt, for he said that they had no need of such protection, as they had only to appeal to him if aggrieved. In May, 1567, during the absence of Inquisitor Miranda, the fiscal presented to the other inquisitor, Geronimo Manrique, a clamosaagainst the brothers (Lea, 1906, Vol. 3, 362-363).”

Due to the conflict between the Duke and the Inquisition, the inquisition schemed on a way to apply pressure upon the Muslim nobles. Don Cosme was bought to trial first and was interrogated. He was asked about when he was baptized, and he said:

“…that he presumed he had been baptized when a child, yet he did not consider himself a Christian but a Moor [Muslim]; he had through life performed Moorish [Muslim] rites and had gone to confession only to conform with the edicts, but in future he desired to be a Christian and to do whatever the inquisitors might require (ibid, 363).”

Clearly, today the allegory between this example and ourleaders, western educated intellectuals and elites is painfully clear. They watch, rule and guide us, and look for the welfare of their masters, (then it was the Inquisition, and today it is America and its kaafir allies around the world), their own welfare and not the well being of the Muslims.

As for the allegories between the Inquisition and the currentdoctrine of Extraordinary rendition and torture in third party sites by the United States is very lucid indeed. To begin the secrecy of both their operations and the way by which they make ‘detainees’ disappear, (taking away their Habeas Corpus rights), are very similar. Henry Charles Lea describes theInquisitions activity:

“When a prisoner was arrested he disappeared from human view as though the Earth had opened to swallow him; his trial might last two, three, or four years, during which his family knew not whether he was dead or alive. (Lea, 2001,111).”

Much has been made in the media about Secret Americaninterrogation sites and prison sites around the globe during the ‘war on terror,’ and this distinction is also found in the Inquisition in Spain. The Spanish inquisitor also differentiated between interrogation prisons and actual public prisons of confinement:

“The cárceles secretas, or secret prison, was theofficial designation of the place of confinement during trial of those accused of heresy. It formed part of the building of the Inquisition, so that the prisoner could at any moment be brought into the audience-chamber without being exposed to public view--such a case as Carranza's, where confinement was in a different place and the inquisitors went there, being wholly exceptional. The secret prison was exclusively one of detention, the casa de penitencia, or punitive prison, being whollydifferent…(Lea, 1906, vol. 2, 507).”

In fact even the torture methods, such as water torture (‘waterboarding’), are all remnants of the Spanish Inquisition.

Remember: What happened to these Muslims of al-Andalus isbeing done to you and your children but in such a devious and stready manner, which would have made the Spanish Inquisitors proud! In fact you no longer recognize falsehood as such, and instead, without any interference or interjection of the kuffaar, you call falsehood, truth and truth, falsehood, willingly!

* (One well-known prisoner who has suffered of this stripping of the clothes is the Shaykh ‘Umar AbdurRahman [May Allah release him from prison] and others whom we don’t know but Allah knows them.)

We ask Allah to help our opressed Mulims brothers andsisters wherever they may be. We ask Allah to free the imprisoned Muslim. Weask Allah to give us victory and to make us part of those who give this Deen victory. Finally, we ask Allah toredurn al-Andalus to our control.